[jillybean]

Jlall, on Apr 6 2005, 11:51 AM, said:

mikestar, on Apr 5 2005, 03:46 PM, said:

In the ACBL in a GCC game it is illegal to open 1N with a singleton as a matter of partnership agreement--it is legal as a very occasional excercise of bridge judgement (infrequent enough not to give rise to an implicit agreement). Since partner is in the dark, no alert is necessary or possible.

Really? wow that's surprising. I didn't know the ACBL was THAT dumb, I guess I should stop being surprised at this point.

cascade said:

ACBL - 1NT with a Singleton Policy


This article suggests that your frequency of 1NT with a singleton needs to be less than 1%. 

It is not clear to me: 1% of what?

But if it is 1% of 1NT openings then you would not be able to open 1NT with 4441 every time you had a singleton Ace, King or Queen.  Probably even one of those options would be too much.

This ruling seems overly restrictive to me.

I also believe it is of dubious validity since L40D only allows regulation of conventional bids and ultra-light openings.  A 1NT opening that is offering to play in NTs is not by definition a conventional bid.  This is true even if the ACBL choose to say that a natural 1NT will not have a singleton.

2+ years later, is this still the official word from the ACBL and is this rule enforced, at all levels? Have there been any more discussions, has the legality of the restriction been questioned?

Previous discussions
http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?sho...singleton&st=15

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?sho...l=1NT+singleton

[Apollo81]

IMO its not a unspoken agreement unless responder stops dumping opener in responder's 5M or 6m with a weak hand.

AFAIK if the ACBL catches you doing it more than once every couple months then it's an unspoken agreement in their view.

[Stephen Tu]

It's also completely ridiculous, because they also make some statement like "if it's judgment, it's OK, but if it's systemic, it's not". That's stupid because if your judgment is at all consistent, that automatically means you'll open a class of hands with a singleton, if you ever open with a singleton, since if you change small spots surely you wouldn't change your mind. And inherently that will become an implicit agreement with partner even if he doesn't cater to it and has no way to anyway.

So I just go on opening 1nt on a singleton whenever I think it's best, ACBL can bite me.

It ought to be OK just solely if responder doesn't have a response structure to find out if opener has stiff. Or perhaps it should just be OK period. I don't know why people should get all bent out of shape because opponent showed up with a stiff. It's a natural, non-forcing bid, opening with a singleton has risks of missing better suit partials and partner signing off in the stiff, people ought to be able to take that risk systemically if they think it helps their system overall.

[rbforster]

jillybean2, on Jun 26 2007, 10:26 AM, said:

This article suggests that your frequency of 1NT with a singleton needs to be less than 1%.  It is not clear to me: 1% of what? 

Certainly if it is 1% of all your opening bids (as opposed to your 1NT openings), you would be well under this limit. Unless you're opening 8-18 NT's with off shapes or something .

Quote

But if it is 1% of 1NT openings then you would not be able to open 1NT with 4441 every time you had a singleton Ace, King or Queen.  Probably even one of those options would be too much.

I looked at some basic probabilities, and if you were to include all 4441 hands in 1NT they would be between 5-7% of your 1NT openings, depending on if you include 5 card majors (5332) or not. If you figure a high honor is worth 3 HCP on average (ignoring jacks), a 15-17 NT will have about 5 honors. This suggests roughly a 5/13 chance (lower obviously with a weak NT range) that you'll have a singleton honor if you have a 4441 shape, cutting your relative singleton probability even further. At this point you could certainly get under their 1% threshold by opening only 1♠444 shapes (since these have bad rebids sometimes) for example.

Quote

This is true even if the ACBL choose to say that a natural 1NT will not have a singleton.

This must be a reinterpretation of the rules against non-standard bidders (am I surprised?) since the GCC clearly says

GCC said:

a notrump opening or overcall is natural if not unbalanced (generally, no singleton or void and only one or two doubletons).

To me "generally" no singleton would mean it's pretty unlikely, and I would certainly think that something that happened once out of 20 1NT openings (5%) or less would be sufficiently unlikely to meet this standard. Heck, apparently I'm allowed to have a void(!) under GCC, just not "generally" which sure seems more extreme (in terms of warning the opponents) than an odd singleton honor. The GCC wording seems like a much looser and more reasonable standard than this arbitrary 1% rule. Then again, maybe you should play your 1NT with singletons and if anyone complains, challenge the director or opps to prove it was more likely than 1%!

Regardless of the ACBL stance on singletons in 1NT (which is not "standard" bidding in the ACBL), I bet they'd be singing a different tune if you started coming down with regulatory penalties,etc, on top players for opening a strong 2NT with a singleton. I bet if you give a hand like

A or K stiff
AQxx
KQJx
AJxx

to a panel of experts almost every one of them is going to be bidding 2NT (20-21). As a matter of practice, I'm sure that the experts open 2NT with a singleton more than 1% of the time, so the ACBL rule seems pretty hypocritical to me.

Stephen Tu, on Jun 26 2007, 11:41 AM, said:

So I just go on opening 1nt on a singleton whenever I think it's best, ACBL can bite me.

This seems like a practical solution .

[jillybean]

Stephen Tu, on Jun 26 2007, 09:41 AM, said:

So I just go on opening 1nt on a singleton whenever I think it's best, ACBL can bite me.

Not exactly a workable solution ! I announce off shape 1nt's, possibilty singleton so I would need to break 2 rules to play in ACBL events.

[awm]

Perhaps the problem is that bidding methods really should take into account location of values in addition to shape. The ACBL doesn't want to (and in fact may not be able to) regulate decisions to treat a hand as a slightly different shape based on extremely skewed location of values. For example, it's hard to really complain if someone opens 1♠ playing five-card majors holding:

AKQJ
Q54
5432
Q9

After all, AKQJ "looks like" a five-card suit and opening this suit could easily be more appealing than the textbook "shape only" 1♦ opener. Similarly it's hard to complain if someone opens 1♣ "better minor" holding:

KJ43
QT76
432
AK

Such actions are not really psychs. It's just an agreement to treat extremely weak holdings as one card less, or extremely strong holdings as one card more. Similarly it seems reasonable to agree that "if my longest suit is very weak and I have a singleton honor and in range, I will tend to open 1NT" -- again this is not really a psych even though 1NT openings are supposed to have no singletons or voids:

K
AKJ
87654
AJ42

Again the textbook "shape only" bid is 1♦, but do you really want to open this anemic diamond suit and then rebid your (also weakish) clubs with 11 of your 16 hcp in the majors?

I think what ACBL is trying to do is state that "it's okay to open 1NT on hands with very skewed honor location, but we do not want people agreeing that 1NT is their normal opening bid on certain distributions with singleton."

In essence this is fairly reasonable -- the idea is that an opening 1NT which by agreement includes all 1444 hands (for example) is really a conventional opening. Similarly an opening 1♣ which includes all balanced hands is a conventional opening. The ACBL (or any SO) is allowed to restrict conventional openings. On the other hand, bidding a hand with skewed honor distribution as though a strong suit were one card longer or a weak suit one card shorter is not even a psych since it is hardly a "gross misrepresentation" of shape or strength.

My recommendation would be that if you only open 1NT on hands with a singleton honor and either a very weak longest suit or potential rebid problem, then go ahead and do so. I don't think it even makes the 1NT bids alertable (although you should mention this tendency if asked). But if you open 1NT on hands with small singletons then you're playing a conventional opening, which definitely requires alert and disclosure everywhere and is also an illegal (well super-chart probably) agreement in ACBL-land.

[jtfanclub]

awm, on Jun 26 2007, 03:30 PM, said:

In essence this is fairly reasonable -- the idea is that an opening 1NT which by agreement includes all 1444 hands (for example) is really a conventional opening.

I don't buy that for a moment.

If I open all (43) (51) hands 1NT, it isn't 'conventional'. It's because I want to play in No-Trump, and not the minor, when partner doesn't have a 4 card major. Furthermore, I see no logic in allowing 3325 but banning 4315, with no diamond honors. What, the extra small diamond suddenly makes it a stopper?

Back in the good old days, nobody opened 1NT with a small doubleton. The standards have since been relaxed considerably. The idea of no singletons isn't a convention issue, not if you still include 4333s. It's just an arbitrary cut-off point for weirdness, the same way that 2 diamonds can be the majors with 10+ hcp, but not 9+.

[awm]

And I don't buy that just because a bid is non-forcing, that makes it non-conventional. By such an argument no opening bid with a limited range is conventional since partner can always pass.

The mere fact that 1NT can be passed by a weak partner doesn't mean that I can open it with any shape whatsoever and claim it's not conventional. Things just don't work that way.

[BebopKid]

I hope everyone knows that complaints about ACBL rules happen continuously. Everyone who is a member receives a magazine each month that contains letters about some rule or procedure. ACBL not only prints this, but asks other readers to comment on them. ACBL is there to serve its members. If a significant minority wants something, that is not in direct competition with the majority, I think it usually happens.

[jtfanclub]

BebopKid, on Jun 26 2007, 04:18 PM, said:

If a significant minority wants something, that is not in direct competition with the majority, I think it usually happens.

Basically, somebody on the Committee has to champion it. Then they cash in favors and get it heard by the Committe, who rules based on what you mentioned. But just to get it heard at all is very difficult.

For example, in the system I'm playing, a 2♣ response to 1♦ is artificial game forcing. Completely legal, no problem. But third and fourth seat, what it should mean is artificial, one round forcing, asking partner if he opened light. Unfortunately, this isn't legal in GCC.

Which makes no sense. Playing 2♣ over 1 of a major with that meaning is legal...it's Drury. It also makes perfect sense to Drury over 1 diamond in Standard American and 2/1...the odds that you'll actually need a 2 club call over 1 diamond as a passed hand is close to nil. For the Committee members I've spoken to about it, they've all agreed- no special defense needed, it makes perfect sense, it should be legal. But since none of them care enough about it, it's not happening. They have their own pets that get priority.

It is nice that the rules don't change every year, but the politics of it....

[david_c]

BebopKid, on Jun 26 2007, 10:18 PM, said:

I hope everyone knows that complaints about ACBL rules happen continuously.  Everyone who is a member receives a magazine each month that contains letters about some rule or procedure.  ACBL not only prints this, but asks other readers to comment on them.  ACBL is there to serve its members.  If a significant minority wants something, that is not in direct competition with the majority, I think it usually happens.

Really? In the six years or so that I've been reading forums like this one, I've certainly seen plenty of complaints about ACBL regulations, but I can't remember any that have been acted upon by the ACBL. But maybe I've just missed them - can you give any examples?

From the same period of time, I can think of at least half a dozen significant things that people have complained about with our English regulations which the EBU has actually changed - including opening 1NT with a singleton. (Plus a large number of individual conventions which have been permitted.)

It seems to me that while the ACBL may in theory have the capability to make changes, the pace of change is ridiculously slow.

[jtfanclub]

awm, on Jun 26 2007, 04:06 PM, said:

And I don't buy that just because a bid is non-forcing, that makes it non-conventional. By such an argument no opening bid with a limited range is conventional since partner can always pass.

I agree: a conventional meaning is one that promises something other than what was bid. If 1NT promised a 5431 shape, then sure, it would be conventional.

But what's conventional about 1NT being a basically balanced hand that wants to play NT across a balanced hand? How is a 6322 with a two small doubletons more 'balanced' than 5431?

[foo]

Rob F, on Jun 26 2007, 11:50 AM, said:

Regardless of the ACBL stance on singletons in 1NT (which is not "standard" bidding in the ACBL), I bet they'd be singing a different tune if you started coming down with regulatory penalties,etc, on top players for opening a strong 2N with a singleton. I bet if you give a hand like

A or K stiff ♥ AQxx ♦ KQJx ♣ AJxx

to a panel of experts almost every one of them is going to be bidding 2N (20-21). As a matter of practice, I'm sure that the experts open 2N with a singleton more than 1% of the time, so the ACBL rule seems pretty hypocritical to me.

I'll take that bet. This is a perfect hand for a Reverse: 1♦-1♠;2♥


Some history to help understand when a NT bid is natural:

In the early days of Bridge, the call of "One No Trumps" meant "I do not have shape or a 4+ card suit sufficient to suggest as a trump suit. My hand is good enough to take 1 trick over Book without a trump suit."
(Yes, the original 1N range was 12-14 or 13-15 )

Thus 4333's, 4432's w/o a biddable 4cM, and 5332's where the 5 card suit was a minor or very weak were the usual shapes.

Before the invention of Stayman, players =hated= opening NT and tried mightily to avoid it.

[hrothgar]

foo, on Jun 27 2007, 03:57 PM, said:

Rob F, on Jun 26 2007, 11:50 AM, said:

I bet if you give a hand like

A or K stiff ♥ AQxx ♦ KQJx ♣ AJxx

to a panel of experts almost every one of them is going to be bidding 2N (20-21).  As a matter of practice, I'm sure that the experts open 2N with a singleton more than 1% of the time, so the ACBL rule seems pretty hypocritical to me.

I'll take that bet. This is a perfect hand for a Reverse: 1♦-1♠;2♥

Just so we're clear... Are you serious suggesting reversing with

♠ A
♥ AQxx
♦ KQJx
♣ AJxx

Personally, I find this laughable. There aren't all that many hard and fast rules in bridge, however, this sequence promises longer Diamonds than Hearts.

I'm well aware that there are plenty of hands out there where you need to take some liberties. However, I think that a 2NT opening is preferable to a reverse. I agree with Rob that I'd expect an expert bidding panel to bid the same way.

Suggesting that a reverse is "perfect" is delusional.

[kenrexford]

Each NBO has weird rules as to conventional bids that seem to annoy a large percentage of the membership. The ACBL is equally annoying with some of the stranger rules in the GCC, and some of the GCC inconsistencies. Personally, I think the rule against a stiff for a 1NT opening makes little sense, especially if they define a 1NT opening as OK when quasi-balanced (including 4441/5431, perhaps with the limitation of the stiff being K or A, whatever). Similarly, 2-level bids with 10+ that promise 5+ in the suit bid should not be banned merely because there is a known presence of a second suit but that suit is not yet known. So what? The bid is natural. Also, requiring 4+ to respond in a major at the one-level makes no sense. That is a rule that caters to the folks who just cannot seem to understand that 1♣-P-1♥-2♥ is natural, not Michaels.

So, what do we do about this? Each of us with a personal pet peeve about something on the GCC (in the ACBL) writes to the Bulletin (for what reason, I don't know), or tries to figure out who to contact on the committee (their web link has not been updated in years), or contacts a District representative (meaningless), or contacts whoeever makes sense, but the result is a nice letter and nothing more.

Perhaps what would make more sense is to find a place where a lot of interested folks communicate with each other, and organize calculated petitions and contacts to the powers that be. Maybe BBF?

I mean, imagine if BBF folks agreed to take it slowly (let's not start with a Moscito bite) and bombard all these sources with one idea at a time until it is adopted. FOr example, suppose we all agreed that the easiest and least controversial complaint would be the stiff 1NT opening problem. We then have a poll as to how many would endorse this change (perhaps a new subsection called "proposed changes to rules, or something). If we have a sizable percentage who agree, we send the numbers to the powers that be, requesting consideration. Maybe we even have liasons to other forums for similar handling of this issue. Whatever. Organized revolt.

Just an idea... Needs more work, I suppose.

[jtfanclub]

kenrexford, on Jun 27 2007, 08:36 AM, said:

If we have a sizable percentage who agree, we send the numbers to the powers that be, requesting consideration. Maybe we even have liasons to other forums for similar handling of this issue. Whatever. Organized revolt.

Mike Flader has been known to play on the club, and he is on the Committee. He has been happy in the past to let me know the names of people on the Committee who might be interested in sposoring my suggested changes.

Limiting ourselves might be difficult...for example, I want all (43)-5-1 hands opened 1NT because, playing Precision, that allows my 2 club opener to promise 6 clubs.

[jillybean]

Perhaps we can take a step back here before rallying people to lobby the ACBL. I am interested in the history of this, why the rule was added and how a rule can be introduced in violation of exisiting laws.

Law40D said:

D. Regulation of Conventions
The sponsoring organisation may regulate the use of bidding or play
conventions. Zonal organisations may, in addition, regulate partnership
understandings (even if not conventional) that permit the partnership’s initial
actions at the one level to be made with a hand of a King or more below
average strength. Zonal organisations may delegate this responsibility.

40D does not allow the ACBL to regulate 1nt openings, which are neither conventional nor weak.

[paulg]

jillybean2, on Jun 27 2007, 03:45 PM, said:

Perhaps we can take a step back here before rallying people to lobby the ACBL.  I am interested in the history of this, why the rule was added and how a rule can be introduced in violation of exisiting laws.

Law40D said:

D. Regulation of Conventions
The sponsoring organisation may regulate the use of bidding or play
conventions. Zonal organisations may, in addition, regulate partnership
understandings (even if not conventional) that permit the partnership’s initial
actions at the one level to be made with a hand of a King or more below
average strength. Zonal organisations may delegate this responsibility.

40D does not allow the ACBL to regulate 1nt openings, which are neither conventional nor weak.

I was going to write that a, say, 4315 hand is not balanced and hence non-natural and perhaps therefore conventional and they could regulate this. But first I thought I'd check in the Definitions:

Definitions, on 1997 Laws, said:

Convention — 1. A call that, by partnership agreement, conveys a meaning other than willingness to play in the denomination named (or in the last denomination named), or high-card strength or length (three cards or more) there. However, an agreement as to overall strength does not make a call a convention. 2. Defender’s play that serves to convey a meaning by agreement rather than inference.

To me this says that this 1NT call would not be conventional, even if it held a singleton.

[mycroft]

Five comments:

1) 1NT not balanced is conventional - maybe only by abusing the letter of the definition, but you won't find many who won't agree.

2) Even if it weren't, you are right, you can't regulate natural calls (except for really light ones at the one-level) at least until the next set of Laws come out. But SOs can, and do, play the "you can't play any conventions afterward" card - that has been specifically reviewed and deemed legal by the WBF Laws Commission - so if you push too hard, they'll just allow you to open 1NT with a potential singleton, but then you don't get to play any conventions after *any* of your 1NT openings. No Stayman, no Transfers, no Gerber, no Lebensohl, no auto-Splinters, ... Have fun.

3) AWM is right - Non-Forcing (not only that, but even "willing to play there") is not necessarily non-conventional. If you don't believe me, think of Precision three-suited 2H (Mid-Chart in the ACBL) or Flannery 2H (GCC). Definitely conventional, but not only non-forcing, but partner will pass probably 30% of the time. Many conventions are NF.

4) In answer to the original poster, yes, and yes. The difference between judgement and systemic in the regulation is a matter of systemic support - if you do *anything* to look like you are catering for a potential singleton, especially if you have an agreement designed to find out if playing in the 5-card suit is going to be a 6-card fit, then you're on the hook.

Having said that,

5) Most of the time the regulation is enforced - in fact, every time I've had to bring it up - it was to *allow* the 1NT bid, not restrict it, in response to the indignant opposition saying "he opened 1NT with a singleton! He can't do that!". Sorry, but he can, provided he follows the rules. So be thankful for the regulation, which allows sanity.

There's a lot of "you can't do that" old wives' tales that aren't true (or haven't been true for 30 years), even in the ACBL.

Michael.

[awm]

So what makes a notrump bid conventional in your opinion? Certainly there are very few, if any hands where you would not be willing to play in notrump opposite a suitable hand from partner. Barring some 6-6 hands or hands with 8-card major suits, I would say there is virtually no hand where you would not accept 3NT as a contract opposite a suitable hand from partner.

To take things to the extreme, suppose partner and I agree to open 1NT with all hands in the 10-13 hcp range. Conventional or not?

I think the view that a 1NT bid is natural if it contains no singleton or void and conventional otherwise is actually pretty reasonable. Places other than ACBL tend to be more liberal about convention regulation, but I'd be surprised if you could find any SO where an agreement to open 1NT with all 4441 hands in range doesn't require an alert; in other words, I don't think anyone really believes that this is the "natural" meaning of 1NT (although many places are inclined to allow more artificial/conventional bids than ACBL does).